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| http://www.himandus.net/hofh/chauvin/richard/richard_00_acadian_history.html |
I planned on writing a piece today about minority culture, when a casual conversation with my neighbor directed me towards another key issue affecting impoverished Americans that's a tie-in with today's "Hurricane Joachim" conditions, and that is this: flooding. It's no secret to my Acadian, Cajun, and Creole peoples that oppressed minorities who threaten the status quo were (are) pushed into marshlands and swamps (what up, Zydeco fans?), conveniently "resettled" during occupational wars with not-so-hidden agendas. Richly fertile island nations with beautifully exotic women were suspiciously targeted the most often.
To this day, "white" Canada disparagingly refers to any native person as an "Aboriginal", in a clear attempt to marginalize their First Nation status by wrongly placing them in the same category as the people of Australia, who are seen as less than attractive by the European Penal Colonists sent there without choice. Obviously, each human tribe on Planet Earth has a range of beauty from the ugly to the more comely, but it is no secret (see me in pics) that the Métis figured something out: French (or Scotch/Irish) guy mates with squaw = an "OMIGOD, how do I get my hands on that?!" level of attractiveness that my sweet Norman Barese grandmother from the Abruzzi region of Italy called "Oo la la!" in a loud voice whenever she thought it was wise to remind her family about me and my key "factor", and she was never wrong about anything. Like, ever.
The Canadian government recently officially recognized that the enforced separation, murder, and ethnic cleansing of Acadian Métis was "unfortunate", which is kind of like saying that the Serbian Croatian War was "bad". Yeah, you think? Ripping families apart based on eye color has become such a taboo subject in my culture, that deeply ingrained prejudices about it remain in place to this day. My Québécois/Irish-American college boyfriend from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn told me a few times that he had qualms about my "marriageability" because I have brown eyes (strikingly coal-black eyes are a trademark Métis feature) and he has blue eyes, and, ahem, you know, well, maybe he wanted blue-eyed children. Me, looking like what you know to be true, and he is no supermodel. It was a petty little head game he played with me to parlay my supposed insecurities about my looks into his hands, which...well, you see where I'm at with him today. Nowheresville.
Race continues to define the descendants of a culture that took American ideals at face value when it came to openly assimilating different cultures. French with Africaine? No problem: you Creole now. European with a Native? Okay, we are Métis. Ditto with your Irish, Scottish, British, and Dutch ancestors with us. Now you tribe, too. Twenty-five percent is all you typically need to get in, barring any serious medical conditions like violently anti-social paranoid schizophrenia (which is kind of a "no-no" in any human community), and we just might let you in for life. All we ask is that you accept my brother and my sister, who may or may not share eye color or the exact same skin tone, but we have a wide range. You follow me here?
The Acadian Deportation (Le Grand Dérangement) is exactly what got you stranded in an area below sea level, ami. Homeboy, you sinkin' in Red Hook right now ("Hoek" in Dutch, New Amsterdam) because they don't like you and your kind, especially if you get along well with your neighbor, who may or may not be the same color as you. Ya dig? You're the "problem" they want gone. "But, who exactly is 'they'"? "Who", indeed. Now you're asking the right questions. See you on the other side, friends. And take swimmin' lessons in the hood, mes Cajuns et Creoles. Hurricane season is officially here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_Hurricane_Katrina_in_New_Orleans
http://portsidetanker.blogspot.com/2013/02/red-hook-sandy-surge-map.html
https://umaine.edu/canam/publications/st-croix/acadian-deportation-migration-resettlement/
